Stoneshard Update #32 – Health System Changes

The team at Ink Stains Games has recently overhauled the health system (hunger, pain, toxicity, etc.) in their upcoming roguelike RPG Stoneshard, and the latest Kickstarter update offers an overview of these latest changes. The new system is more deterministic with less random elements, which should allow you to plan your actions better. Here’s how it will work:

Hello everyone!

In today’s devlog we’ll continue to explain different changes we’re making to current game system. This time we will go through the health system (except for the system of injuries, as it will be described in a separate devlog).

The health system is one of the core features of our game, so we especially attentively analyzed players’ feedback regarding it. Most often people complained about unfair randomness and some other flaws (such as the interaction of injuries and pain system).

The chance-based system of health was introduced by us at a rather late stage of Prologue development. At that time it seemed like a good idea to us, since we thought it will make the health system a lot more understandable and accessible. However, playtesting showed it was a dubious change: on the one hand it indeed made the system easier to understand. On the other hand, it often worked not as it was intended to.

For example, similar circumstances could result into your character getting agony in 2 turns – or in 10, if you’re lucky enough. Such dispersion seems unacceptable to us, so we decided to return to a strictly deterministic system, where each health scale will depend on the actions of your character in linear fashion.

If earlier hunger and thirst worked randomly (although there was a mandatory interval between the ticks), now they will grow gradually. Skipping the turn will accumulate less hunger and thirst than moving, and moving – less than the attacking someone.

The same applies to pain with toxicity mechanics. Pain will also become a scale, the accumulation rate of which now will depend on how much damage (and which type of damage) your character receives. Fire damage, for example, will be more painful damage than frost damage, etc. By the way, you’ll aslo be able to check the exact values of your hunger, thirst, pain and toxicity levels on a separate Health tab, which we plan to add to the character’s menu.

We’ve also slightly simplified the system of health conditions, so it may fit better with the new system of attributes. Now there’s only 3 stages of each health scale, instead of 4 – light, medium and severe.